ideasfandomcom-20200222-history
Springfield
Springfield is a American animated adult sitcom created by Matt Groening, John Kricfalusi and Seth MacFarlane. Developed by James L. Brooks in collaboration with Matt Weitzman and David X. Cohen, the series serves as an innovation of the Sitcom media franchise. It centers on the eponymous city of the same name, poupulated by anthropomorphic animals. Premise Characters Setting Development Cast and Characters Main Characters * Homer Simpson (voiced by Dan Castellaneta) is the patriarch of the Simpsons household, an Irish-American blue-collar worker. Husband of Marge; father of Bart, Lisa, and Stewie, and owner of Brian. He is a lazy, immature, obese, laid-back, dim-witted, outspoken, eccentric alcoholic and mentally retarded. Homer's jobs have included working at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, the Duff Brewery, fisherman, football player, comic book artist, among others. * Marge Simpson (née Bouvier) (voiced by Julie Kavner) is Homer's wife and the mother of Bart, Lisa, and Stewie. She is a stereoytped French/Anglo-American housewife who cares for her kids and her husband, while also teaching children to play the piano. Marge is also very flirtatious and addicted to games. * Bart Simpson (voiced by Nancy Cartwright) is the oldest child and first son of Homer and Marge; brother of Lisa and Stewie. He is devious, mischievous, overweight, irresponsible, and emotionally effusive, enjoying to irritate his father. Despite his troublesome behavior, Bart is very intelligent and cares about his family. * Lisa Simpson (voiced by Yeardley Smith) is the middle child and only daughter of Homer and Marge; sister of Bart and Stewie. She is a Liberal activist, democrat, and pacifist, who finds herself embarrassed by her family. She is incredibly good at playing saxophone and has artistic aspirations. * Stewie Simpson (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) is the youngest child and second son of Homer and Marge; brother of Bart and Lisa, but often behaves in adult ways such as speaking in an upper-class British accent. He is a child genius who frequently aspired to murder Marge and take over the world but has since mellowed out considerably. Stewie built a time machine with which he and Brian have traveled through time. * Brian Simpson (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) is the family's anthropomorphic talking white Labrador Retriever dog and the best friend of both Homer and Stewie. He, Stewie, Ren, Stimpy, Roger and the Wattersons are the center of some of the show's most critically acclaimed episodes, most notably the "Road to..." episodes, where he and Stewie go on road-trips together. Brian is portrayed as an intellectual—a Brown University attendee—who often serves as the family's voice of reason, pointing out how ridiculous Homer's ideas are, or how Bart's attitudes can get him into trouble. He is not-so-secretly in love with Marge and is an unsuccessful, unemployed writer. * Roger (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) is the very zany pansexual alien who lives in the Simpson family's attic. Blithely so, Roger is cheated, ridiculed, depraved, devious, and cruel. He typically exhibits a lighthearted, carefree temperament while also engaged in his freakish grossness, outrageous malice, and rascally shenanigans. Having no limits on his shocking and brazen ways, Roger typically says and does anything and everything that comes to his mind. * Bender Rodriguez (voiced by John DiMaggio) is a foul-mouthed, heavy-drinking, cigar-smoking, kleptomaniacal, misanthropic, egocentric, ill-tempered robot from the future who is mainly descripted as an "alcoholic, whore-mongering, chain-smoking gambler". His dialogue often contains anti-human expressions such as "kill all humans". Exceptions who are not subject to Bender's prejudicial attitude are those individuals on his "Do Not Kill" list, which seems to comprise only Homer. * Klaus Heissler (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker) is the Simpson family's hapless, German-accented and saturnine goldfish. He's consultative and full of sage advice, sometimes even wearing glasses and taking on a scholarly appearance. Klaus was once an East German Olympic human ski-jumper until his mind was transferred into the body of a goldfish during the 1986 Winter Olympics by the CIA to prevent him from winning the gold medal, leaving him permanently trapped in the goldfish's body. Klaus still hasn't come to terms with what happened, at times malcontent and gloomy, which he always ends up either being framed by Bender for some crime he commits or forced to be in the backyard. * Rick Simpson (voiced by Justin Roiland) is a genius scientist who is the father of Homer, and the paternal grandfather of Bart, Lisa and Stewie. He first appeared on the Season 22 episode "My Dad Came Back". His alcoholic tendencies lead his family to worry about the safety of Lisa, since takes her on dangerous, outlandish adventures throughout the cosmos and alternate universes. He displays "diagnosable qualities of various mental illnesses." An extremely intellectual character that views his time as valuable, he disparages the usefulness of many ordinary human conventions such as school, marriage, and even love, though he displays genuine affection towards his grandchildren and son throughout the series. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Recurring Characters * Episodes Production Hallmarks Humor ''Treehouse of Horror'' episodes ''Road to'' episodes Reception and legacy Ratings Critical reception Awards Controversies The show's frequent depiction of taboo subject matter, accessibility to younger viewers, disregard for conservative sensibilities, negative depiction of liberal causes, and portrayal of religion, race, and sex for social criticism and comical effect have generated controversy and debate over the course of its run. The Parents Television Council (PTC), a conservative, non-profit watchdog, has attacked the series since its premiere and has branded various episodes as "Worst TV Show of the Week". In May 2000 the PTC launched a letter-writing campaign to the Fox network in an effort to persuade the network to cancel the show. The PTC has placed the show on their annual lists of "Worst Prime-Time Shows for Family Viewing" in 2000, 2005, and 2006. The Federal Communications Commission has received multiple petitions requesting that the show be blocked from broadcasting on indecency grounds. Tucker and the PTC have both accused the show of portraying religion negatively, and of being racist. Because of the PTC, some advertisers have canceled their contracts after reviewing the content of the episodes, claiming it to be unsuitable. Various episodes of the show have generated controversy. Ren and Stimpy visit Australia in "Ren vs. Australia" and the Simpson family visit Brazil in "Blame It on Lisa", and both episodes generated controversy and negative reaction in the visited countries. In the latter case, Rio de Janeiro's tourist board—which claimed that the city was portrayed as having rampant street crime, prostitution, drug dealing, kidnappings, rape, slums, and monkey and rat infestations—went so far as to threaten Fox with legal action. In "420", Brian decides to start a campaign to legalize cannabis in Springfield; the Venezuelan government reacted negatively to the episode and banned Springfield from airing on their local networks, which generally syndicate American programming. Venezuelan justice minister Tareck El Aissami, citing the promotion of the use of cannabis, stated that any cable stations that did not stop airing the series would be fined; the government showed a clip which featured Brian and Stewie singing the praises of marijuana as a demonstration of how the United States supports cannabis use. In "Extra Large Medium", a character named Ellen (who has Down syndrome) states that her mother is the former Governor of Alaska, which strongly implies that her mother is Sarah Palin, the only woman to have served in the office of governor in the state. Sarah Palin, the mother of a special-needs child, criticized the episode in an appearance on The O'Reilly Factor, calling those who made the show "cruel, cold-hearted people." "The Principal and the Pauper" is one of the most controversial episodes of Springfield. Many fans and critics reacted negatively to the revelation that Seymour Skinner, one of the series' main characters since the first season, was an impostor. The episode has been criticized by Groening, MacFarlane, and by Harry Shearer, who provides the voice of Skinner. In a 2001 interview, Shearer recalled that after reading the script, he told the writers, "That's so wrong. You're taking something that an audience has built eight years or nine years of investment in and just tossed it in the trash can for no good reason, for a story we've done before with other characters. It's so arbitrary and gratuitous, and it's disrespectful to the audience." "Ren Seeks Help", one of the first John Kricfalusi-directed episodes after returning from his hitaus from the show during the late 1990s, is another of the most controversial episodes of Springfield. It shows one of Ren's most disturbing and villainous moments as he visits Mr. Horse (in his last appearance) working a psychologist after a major quarrel with Stimpy over saying him life sucks and telling him Children's Crusade, which leaves Stimpy in hysterical grief and Ren in guilt (one of the few episodes where Stimpy stands up to Ren). Ren recalls in graphic detail how as a child he experienced the trauma of being born and feeling pain for the first time, installing in him a hatred for all living things - he tortured small animals and killed them, until he tortured a frog that begged for him to kill it, Ren refused to do so in order to let the frog suffer a life of agonizing pain. Ren then told the psychologist about how he first met Stimpy and how he hit him continually, eventually Mr. Horse goes insane himself - utterly finally agonizingly repulsed by Ren's sadistic insanity after years being a calm character until this episode - he and Ren engage in an extremely graphic fight that is apparently fatal as Ren becomes a rabid beast who beats Mr. Horse to death before being taken away by psychiatric nurses with dog-poles (but not before biting one of their hands off and eating it). The episode has been criticized by fans because of this violent ending. Ban Declining quality Other Media Trivia Category:Comedy